East African Business Week (Kampala)
Bosco Hitimana
7 July 2009
Kigali — Starbucks, a US coffee company, last week opened its first farmer support centre in Africa.
Starbucks President and CEO, Mr. Howard Schultz officially opened the centre based in Rwanda.
"This centre will support Rwanda and other countries in Africa for the sole purpose of replicating what we did in Costa Rica: to help farmers produce high quality coffee," Schultz said.
Starbucks has a similar centre in Costa Rica, and it had announced in 2007 that it would open one in Rwanda and Ethiopia in 2008. The Ethiopian centre is not yet opened.
The centre will particularly work with East African coffee communities to help them continue to improve their coffee quality and to increase the number of suppliers producing coffee imported by Starbucks. The service will be offered freely.
Starbucks agronomist and quality experts attached to the centre will work directly with farmers to develop and use more responsible methods to grow better coffee and help improve the quality and size of the harvest to attract better prices.
During his four-day visit in Rwanda, Schultz met President Kagame, the head of the Coffee Development Board, coffee farmers and exporters.
Starbucks and Fair Trade Company, a member of the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations (FLO), partnered, allowing Starbucks to buy the high quality Fair Trade Certified Rwandan Bourbon Arabica Coffee.
The selected coffee, produced by Dukunde Kawa Co-op, a local coffee co-operative, will be available throughout Starbucks' 800 stores in the United Kingdom starting February next year.
This will be the first time Rwandan fair-trade coffee will be sold in Starbucks stores in the UK.
Dukunde Kawa Co-op was first visited by Starbucks coffee buyers in 2005 and was Fairtrade certified since 2005.
Starbucks has been importing Rwandan coffee through brokers.
The Head, Rwandan Coffee Board, Alex Kanyankole hailed the Starbucks initiative to get closer to the coffee farmers.
"We are going to be more linked to the Starbucks," Kanyankole told East African Business Week.
He said Rwanda is not worried about the huge coffee demand to sustain the 800 Starbucks outlets in the UK.
Starbucks confirmed the ongoing investment of nearly US$9 million to-date in loans to farmers in the East African region, helping over 85,000 farmers to develop their business. Since 2004, US$3.7 million has been made available to farmers in Rwanda through organizations like Root Capital.
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